Pale Shadows and Bloody Ashes
by Raolin
Summary: Buffy and the Scoobies having gotten a pretty good handle on the whole routine of attending classes and slaying vampires and not slaying principals. But there's a new player arriving in town. And he's about to turn everything on its ear. For everyone. Story starts during season one of Buffy, and includes elements and characters from Angel. OC main character. Multi pairing.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter** **1** **–** **New Arrivals**

…

"A pale horse emerged with Death as its rider," a crazed-looking man growled, resembling an unwashed mix of military soldier and homeless drifter. "You will be judged." His glaring, feverish eyes fell on all those around him with disdain. " _You will be judged_ ," he threatened once again before turning his disgusted gaze back out his window.

Seated in the back of the bus, a brown-haired passenger rolled his eyes in annoyance at yet more of the man's ranting. He wasn't the only one, either. All of his fellow busmates had heard more than a few choruses of the zealot's fanatical ramblings over the past hour. Most seemed to be rather pointedly ignoring him, though. For instance, one woman on the other side of the aisle kept her head down and appeared absorbed in doing her crossword by booklight. However, it had been some time since the faint scritches of her pencil had last been heard. Mostly, she was just making sure there was no chance of accidentally making eye contact with the idiot.

Another woman wrapped her child protectively in her arms as he played with a toy airplane, for all the world appearing completely lost in her own thoughts, though she occasionally tipped her hand by casting fearful glances over her son's head at the unstable man. Most of the others simply seemed to be sticking to the traditional standby of staring out their windows instead, though given how the heavy cloud cover overhead blocked any light from the moon or even the stars, there was little to see in the inky black night outside beyond the occasional tree-shaped shadow, or the faint curl of smoke from the chain-smoking passenger seated up front.

"That day's gonna bring fire!" the zealot declared in lieu of nothing, rising from his seat in excitement. " _Fire_ comin' down. Judgment!" The prospect seemed to thrill the man a great deal as he paced the length of the bus, leaning over and savagely grinning into each of his fellow passengers' faces, much to their apparent but silent discomfort. "Don't think you're ready, _ready_ to look upon Him!" he warned his busmates as they collectively avoided eye contact with the crazy person. Turning, the unwashed preacher began pacing towards the back of the bus. "If there's sin in there, there's sin all around. It's a _liquid_!" he continued ranting.

 _This guy's starting to make me thirsty_ , the passenger thought wryly as the fanatic prowled closer.

"On that day, there won't be anyone tellin' us what to do, or why we're doin' it," he promised before finally reaching the backseat passenger. He paused upon meeting the dark-brown, nearly black eyes of the passenger, the first to freely meet his gaze since he began his sermon. Grinning, the man leaned closer, letting his sulfurous breath mingle with the clouds of stale, sour sweat that clung to him like cologne as they practically smothered the less-than-thrilled new subject of his attention. "Are you willin' to stand with the righteous?" he asked, his fanatical grin matching the fevered light in his eyes perfectly. "Are ya'?" he repeated, laying his grimy hand on the shoulder of the passenger's reddish leather coat.

However, the man's proselyting came to an abrupt and unlamented end as the recipient of the preacher's unwanted physical contact responded with some of his own, sending a worn leather boot punting into the man's groin before grabbing the stained collar of the purple-faced, doubled-over fanatic and slamming his head into the back wall of the bus with a resounding metal thud.

As the annoying lunatic collapsed bonelessly to the floor, mercifully silent at last, the rest of the bus simply stared speechlessly, shocked by the sudden outburst of violence from the still seated and impassive-looking stranger.

 _I wonder if I should interpret their disturbed silence as 'Thanks'_ , he idly wondered before turning back to his window.

Or at least, he started to. He was somewhat distracted by what he caught sight of through the bus's windshield, though.

Namely, a man standing in the road with wide-spread arms and a grin on his face as the bus barreled towards him.

A man with glittering yellow eyes.

The bus echoed with a massive bang as it struck the man head on, followed by terrified screams from the passengers as the bus careened back and forth across the road before crashing through several signs and slamming into a heavy wooden post, finally coming to a stop.

For several moments, all that could be heard was the groaning of passengers and the hiss of steam pouring from the totaled engine.

"Is everyone alright?" the bus driver finally called back, receiving scattered affirmative responses. Shaking his head clear, the driver climbed out of his seat and staggered out the door, heading back down the road towards the motionless body of the man they had struck.

Or at least, towards the body of what once had been a man.

 _It looks like this trip is about to get a lot more interesting_ , the passenger noted as he saw several moving shadows with ravenous yellow eyes converging on the bus.

Out in the street, the driver let out a blood-curdling shriek as the only mostly dead body rolled over and sank its fangs deep into the man's throat.

As if on cue, all along the bus, windows began shattering as roaring, snarling vampires broke their way in and began to tear into the screaming passengers.

"Ngh … what's goin' on?" the now conscious zealot slurred as he rose groggily to his knees. However, he was quickly caught up to speed when a vampire broke through the window in the rear emergency door and pulled his top half outside. The fanatic kicked and screamed, but only briefly.

 _Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy_ , the only non-screaming passenger thought in amusement.

Of course, that was when another vampire apparently decided that he looked rather appetizing himself, and it broke through the window next to him to pull him outside.

Or at least, that's probably what it planned to do. The passenger had no interest in being dinner, though. Catching the vampire's wrist, he pulled and twisted, yanking the vampire's entire arm through the window before slamming his other palm down on the vamp's locked elbow with a loud crack. Still unsatisfied, though, he gave the vamp's wrist a sharp twist as well, resulting in another, slightly smaller crack before he let the howling, thrashing vampire go. Evidently losing its appetite, it pulled itself free and disappeared into the writhing mass of darkness outside the window.

The rest of the vamps still seemed hungry, though, including the one moving down the aisle towards his seat.

Standing up, the passenger brushed his coat free of glass and completely ignored the charging vampire.

The vamp apparently saw nothing suspicious about this behavior, for some reason, and with a tiger-like roar, it launched itself at him anyway.

Spinning, he grabbed the vampire's claw-like hands and pivoted, sweeping at its legs and using the creature's own strength and momentum to send it crashing face-first into the bottom of the metal wall at the back of the bus, snapping its head back with a faint crack. A louder one soon followed as the passenger brought his boot down hard on the base of the vampire's skull, finishing the job and thoroughly breaking its neck.

Something like that wouldn't kill a vampire, of course, but it was doubtful the vamp was particularly grateful for that fact as he stepped over its gurgling, lightly twitching body and started heading towards the front of the bus, paying no more mind to the now rug-like vampire than he did to the vamps still leaning through the windows to feed on what little was left of his fellow passengers.

He did, however, pause to bend down and grab something off that one lady's crossword, which was now lying on the floor next to her kicking feet.

 _Huh. Seven across is 'vampire'_ , he noticed in amusement. One such creature picked that very moment to grab the back of his coat, though it likely regretted this decision as he pivoted, trapping its arm with one of his own before driving the lady's pencil between the vamp's ribs and right into its unbeating heart in a smooth, practiced motion. _What are the odds_? he wondered as the screeching creature turned to dust in his arms.

Brushing dust off his sleeves, he continued down the aisle, now with a little more attention being paid to him by the vamps now finished feeding on his former busmates.

Reaching the front of the bus, he grabbed the guide bar and spun, slamming his boot into the face of the vamp climbing through the door. The vamp staggered back with a beastly growl, clutching its face and glaring murderously. As he stepped off the bus, it launched itself at him. Swaying and ducking, he avoided its claw-like swipes and piston-esque punches. The vamp's eyes grew even more furious as it redoubled its efforts, but he simply kept dancing out of the way, leaving the vamp to snarl impotently as its prey remained tantalizingly out of reach.

Of course, there was more than just one vamp to deal with, a fact made apparent by the faint sound of running footsteps coming up behind him.

Fortunately for him, he was counting on this.

Spinning, he flipped the lady's pencil into a reversed grip in his left hand and jabbed it between the second vampire's ribs and into its heart with surgical precision just as the creature flew at him mid-tackle. Continuing the spin, he swept his jacket over his face with his right hand as the vamp burst into dust that swept over and past him, and straight into the eyes of the first attacker.

As the remaining vamp howled and clutched at its eyes, he moved. With the hand not holding an improvised stake, gave the vamp a fierce jab to the solar plexus. The blinded and now pain-wracked vampire hunched over, and he grabbed the back of its head and slammed his knee into its face. Pivoting, he flipped the stunned vampire over him and slammed it onto its back on the unforgiving asphalt before finishing the job with a quick thrust to the heart with the woman's pencil.

The vampire screeched as its demonic spirit was expelled from its now crumbling form, as vampires were wont to do when they died. However, over the sound of its shrieking, his ears still caught the faint thud of boots on metal.

Without hesitating, he threw himself to the side, rolling to his feet just as another vampire landed in the ashen remains of one of its fellows, having pounced at him from the top of the bus when his back was turned.

This vamp was adaptive, though. Snarling, it immediately lashed out with a spinning kick that came so close to connecting with his face, he could feel tiny droplets of water from the damp pavement splash onto his cheek from its boot.

Roaring, the vamp tried to tackle him. Jumping and spinning, he rolled over and down the vampire's back and came up behind it, dropping low and sweeping its feet out from under it to send it sprawling to its back on the pavement. Flipping the pencil into an ice-pick grip, he brought it down in a finishing move to stake the vamp's heart, only for his arm to be caught at the last moment by the vamp.

For a second, they struggled over the impromptu stake, the tip of the pencil tearing at the vamp's shirt and digging into its skin as it hovered mere inches from the vamp's non-beating heart, and its demise.

Just as it started drawing blood, however, the vamp brought a knee crashing into his side with all of its vampiric strength behind it, sending him flying over the vamp and hurtling towards the bus. Just before he collided, however, he managed to twist his body enough to position his feet between him and the solid metal wall.

Kicking off the side of the bus, he tucked his shoulder under him and landed in a roll on the damp pavement. Back on his feet, he held the lady's pencil like a knife as he prepared to square off with the vamp once again. However, to his surprise, the now standing vampire simply stared at him for a moment, and then started laughing.

That was when he noticed that the pencil in his hand had been broken in half, and the nub that remained was now too short to even reach the vampire's heart.

The vampire swaggered forward, clearly certain of its safety and already savoring the kill it was about to make.

The arrogant cast to its features faded somewhat upon spotting his own grin, however.

Stepping forward, he went on the offensive, the pencil's shortness not slowing him down in the slightest. In fact, it did just the opposite, as its jagged, diminutive length was now sturdier than ever, allowing him to make heavy use of it as a short but effective knife as he capitalized on the vampire's inherent allergy to wood by riddling it with tiny but painful wounds.

The vamp lashed out with a claw-like swipe, and he jabbed the soft underside of its wrist before spinning and crouching to stab the delicate tendons behind its knee. Howling, the vamp grabbed him with its other arm, and he grabbed its wrist and twisted, locking its arm and forcing the vamp to hunch over as he stabbed the inside of its elbow and armpit in quick succession before twisting under its arm and jabbing the pencil deep into the muscles of the back of its neck.

The vamp roared with fury and pain as it pulled itself free and threw itself at him in a savage frenzy. Blocking its wild haymakers with his elbows, he continued his assault by delivering another series of small but incredibly painful wounds to the vamp's bicep, ribs, and the point where its thigh met its hip, finishing by burying the pencil deep in the vamp's eye.

The half-blinded vampire screamed as it grabbed the pencil and pulled it free. Before it could drop it, however, he struck the vamp's wrist, sending the broken pencil flying into the air as he continued the attack, now relying on his fists. He jabbed at the vampire's throat, and when it reflexively grabbed its neck, he struck at the now unprotected wounds that riddled its torso. With every blow, he sent the howling vampire staggering back in agony.

All good things had to come to an end, though. Turning, he snagged the falling pencil out of the air behind him and stabbed it into the vampire's chest. However, its broken length still wasn't long enough to reach the creature's heart.

At least, not without help.

With one final spinning kick, he spiked the pencil deep into the vampire's torso with his heel. And, shrieking like the damned, the last vampire burst into dust.

He watched the ash fall to the pavement like snow before turning and gazing at the similar piles of dust scattered around the ravaged bus.

" _Parasites_ ," he muttered before shaking his head and heading back to the bus, "but at least they can be a good bit of fun."

Climbing back onboard, he carefully inspected a few of the victims. Beyond the shredded throats and gaping but bloodless clawmarks in many of the torsos, he also spotted red-stained lips on most of the motionless victims, including the kid with the toy airplane, whom he vaguely recalled the woman next to him had referred to as Collin. And since he didn't spot any empty bottles nearby, he felt it was safe to assume that those weren't fruit-punch stains on their lips.

The vamps hadn't attacked the bus looking for a meal. They were looking for _recruits_.

He sighed. "Nothing's ever simple, is it?" he asked of no one as he moved away from the vampires-to-be.

Reaching the back of the bus, he stepped over the still-twitching vampire-shaped rug to grab his personal bag from under his seat, carefully brushing shards of broken glass off it before slinging it over his shoulders.

Gently humming to himself, he made his way back to the front of the bus, pausing to fish a cheap plastic lighter out of the pocket of his cigarette-loving former busmate before pulling a blood-stained tie free from his torn-up neck and stepping off the bus once more.

Still humming his little tune, he found and unscrewed the gas cap for the bus. Laying the tie flat on the ground, he popped the top of the man's lighter free with his teeth, spitting it off to the side as he doused the tie with lighter fluid. Tossing the remains of the lighter over his shoulder, he grabbed the damp tie and fed it into the gas tank, though being sure to leave some dangling free.

Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out his own silver lighter and lit the dangling end of the tie. Snapping his lighter shut with a click, he returned it to his pocket and moved to one of the compartment doors along the bottom of the bus while the flame started creeping along the tie.

Opening the compartment, he shoved the bags of his fellow passengers aside before finding his own. Still humming, he slung the larger traveler's bag over his shoulders next to the other and headed down the road, the fire behind him just starting to dance around the rim of the gas tank.

He didn't get far before he stopped and groaned in annoyance, though. Mainly at the sign he saw just ahead of him, and the empty stretch of road beyond it.

' _Welcome to Sunnydale!_ '

"You idiots couldn't at least have waited until we actually made it into town to attack?" he groused, knowing he had quite a walk ahead of him, and not particularly thrilled about it.

Behind him, the fire finally reached the fuel, and the bus exploded in a massive ball of fire hot enough to nearly scorch the back of his neck even well down the road.

He turned back in confusion upon hearing the faint sound of screams, though.

"… Oh, right, the rug," he realized, remembering the broken-necked vampire, which was likely feeling rather toasty at the moment in the not-so-little bus bonfire.

Shrugging, he continued heading down the road as thunder tolled overhead, promising one hell of a storm to come.

* * *

Elsewhere, in a dank, ruined chapel buried deep underground, the storm was already falling as one who styled himself The Master of All Vampires received decidedly unpleasant news.

" _So …_ ," the incomprehensibly ancient vampire lord growled, " _you failed._ "

Before him, a trembling, far-younger vampire with a twice-broken arm nodded reluctantly. "W-we did, M-M-Master."

For several moments, all that could be heard was the faint click of the Master's claws as he irritably tapped the arm of his ornate wooden throne, unique in being one of the few pieces of furniture still intact amidst the rubble that was his mystical prison.

"Six of you went forth," the Master finally spoke again, his voice dripping with malice, "and one returns." Standing, the utterly demonic-looking vampire, ancient enough to have long lost the "curse" of human features, stalked closer to the unfortunate and far more human-looking bearer of this news. "My instructions were clear, were they not? 'Go forth, and bring back my Anointed One'." Pausing, he turned to one of his other followers in the chamber. "I did say that, didn't I?" he asked in a suddenly conversational tone. "After all, it would be rather embarrassing if I were to beat this one to death with his own limbs for his failure if what I had actually said was, 'Go forth and lose five of your brothers before returning to me alone, crippled and useless'."

The lone injured survivor of the assault on the bus shivered from more than just the ice cold water drenching him from the downpour outside. "M-M-Master, I–"

"No, wait, that's right," the Master realized. "I didn't say that."

With a blur of motion, the terrified vampire found himself pinned to the stone wall with the Master's gray-skinned hand at his throat.

" _What I said_ ," the Master snarled, no longer conversationally, " _was to bring me back_ _my_ _Anointed!_ " Turning, he hurled the cowering vampire against the far wall, causing him to shriek in agony as his heavily broken arm struck unforgiving stone with all the force of an enraged elder vampire.

"The Anointed was to be my greatest weapon against the Slayer!" the Master growled as the messenger lay on the ground twitching in pain. With another blur of motion, the Master stood over him and ground his boot into his shattered arm, causing the unfortunate follower to scream in agony. "Is that you, little ant? Will _you_ be my weapon against the Slayer?" He ground his heel more firmly into the howling vampire's arm. "Will _you_ be the one to lead her to hell for me? _Will you be the one who frees me from this cursed prison?!_ "

After a few more seconds of torment, the Master gave a disgusted snort and removed his boot from the now silently spasming vampire's arm. "No. You'll just lie there and whimper for a bit, and then I'll get bored and kill you, and all I'll have to show for it is a headache and yet another pile of dust cluttering this disgusting house of worship." He cast an annoyed eye at his ruined and filthy surroundings as he ran a clawed hand over his hairless scalp. "As if I really need any more dirt around here," he complained in casual irritation.

"… please _…_ Master _…_ ," the survivor weakly coughed. "…it … it wasn't my fault. He _–_ "

"Ooh," the Master cooed in faux delight. "Is this the part where you make excuses? Where you tell me more about this unstoppable beast who killed your brethren and burned my precious Anointed to a crisp before he could even rise?" Crouching down, he pulled the whimpering vampire to a seated position. "There there," he comforted him, brushing dirt from his sodden clothes. "You need to be comfortable to tell me another story." An animal-like growl sounded from behind the Master's smiling lips. "And I always love a good tale before I _eat_."

" _I'm sorry_ ," the terrified vampire whispered.

"Oh? So no more story?" the Master pouted. "But I rather loved hearing about this fiend who was everywhere at once, tearing some of my best warriors apart limb from limb with nothing but his bare hands. Who had powers never before dreamed of. How you fought him with everything you had, and if _only_ the others had listened to you, he might have been stopped. And how it was instead only a stroke of luck that you managed to fight him off enough to survive so you could get word back to me." He gave a saccharine sweet smile. "Noble of you. Very noble. And _oh_ , so very gallant!"

"… please," the vampire begged.

"Oh, come now," the Master replied cheerfully. "Relax, would you? I'm not going to kill you on the floor of my little prison." Seizing the vampire's broken arm in a redundantly bone-crushing grip, he pulled the silently screaming vampire to his feet in what might otherwise have looked like a friendly gesture. "After all," he told the swaying vampire, patting him on the shoulder, "I think you've done rather enough groveling on my floor, don't you?"

The vampire's terrified yellow eyes met the Master's utterly merciless crimson ones.

"You get to die on your feet," the Master told him cheerily. "Be proud."

The vampire's eyes bulged as his entire body gave a heaving lurch. Looking down, he saw the Master's arm sticking through his chest. As blood poured down his chin, though, he realized there was something else that he couldn't see.

The Master's fist protruding from his back, clutching his bloody heart.

Slowly, the vampire reduced to dust that poured around the Master's arm to pile on the ground, followed shortly thereafter by his heart.

Looking at the new pile of filth on his floor, the Master gave a sigh. "You know, he could have at least had the decency to bring a broom with him if he was going to bring me news this bad."

"You really think a broom would make a difference around here?" a woman asked as she stepped forward out of the shadows, her gentle, mellifluous voice perfectly matching the soft lines of her face, both conveying that she was simply the purest essence of sweetness and innocence. However, the cold, cruel blue eyes staring out from that cherubic face revealed both to be nothing but lies.

"Well, at least it would have given me something to hit him with," the Master replied. "That might have made me feel better."

"Doubtful," the woman disagreed, gently stirring the pile of dust with her foot. "I'm curious about this figure he spoke of, though."

"Well, what _I_ am curious about," the Master replied, raising his voice and clearly speaking for someone else's benefit, "is exactly how the prophecy of our order's sacred founder could have been voided so easily!"

Behind him came a series of thumps and scuffles as a balding vampire wearing glasses hastily extracted himself from a stack of books and scrambled forward.

"I'm so sorry, Master. I don't understand," the nervous-looking vampire stammered. "Prophecies are immutable—or at least, they're _supposed_ to be—and according to my translation, all the signs indicated–"

"Yes, yes, _the signs_ ," the Master repeated in exasperation. "I heard plenty about the signs before sending out six of our brethren to attack that bus in a fruitless mission. Tell me, Dalton, do you know what I want to hear now?"

The bookish vampire swallowed audibly. "Um … an apology?"

"Noooo. Guess again," the Master replied as if speaking to a rather dense child.

"Um … the sound of me hitting the books to figure out what happened?" Dalton guessed nervously.

"There you go!" the Master complimented, patting him on the head like a dog.

Without another word, Dalton scurried back to the stack of ancient tomes, a faintly relieved sigh being heard when he was safely ensconced once again, followed by the frenzied rustle of paper as he flipped through their book of prophecies.

"Ugh. You see what I have to deal with around here?" the Master complained to the woman. Shaking his head tiredly, he returned to the subject at hand. "Anyway, as for this supposed newcomer, doubtless the group was simply careless enough to let the Slayer interfere yet again, and Earl here was too cowardly to admit that he got scared and fled from a little girl after only a few broken bones." He frowned at the pile of dust. "He probably thought a tale of some mysterious stranger would intrigue me enough to save his hide. In a week, I'd have been hearing the tale of some mighty battle between him and this outsider that ended in the interloper's death. I've seen it before."

"I'm not so sure," the woman disagreed, gently twirling strands of her golden-blonde hair as she thought. "There _have_ been rumors in the demon world for the last few years, after all. Stories of something new."

"Ah, yes," the Master caught where she was going with this. "This mysterious dread Hunter that has been cutting a bloody swathe through our kind all over the world for the past decade." His tone grew increasingly sarcastic as he continued. "Slaughtering the fiercest beings demonkind has to offer. Entire armies of vampires and demons going up against him, while only he walks away alive, leaving nothing but wastelands of blood and dust in his wake. Butchering ancient demonic royal families entire as he continues his path of unrelenting and unstoppable genocide against our people, and all we can do is _flee_." His condescending smile said what he thought of these tales. "I thought you would have learned by now, my child. Demons are habitual liars, and prone to more than a little embellishment even when telling the truth." He shrugged and returned to his throne. "Likely, it is simply the demonic bloodlines waging war on each other just as they have always done, while all the rest is simply myth and rumor grown out of hand." He grinned, a friendly gesture turned monstrous by his glittering fangs and perpetually blood-stained mouth. "After all, demons are also notoriously superstitious, and incorrigible gossips."

"Maybe so," the woman admitted, "but _something_ has been killing our kind. We have the bodies to prove it." She paused. "At least, for the demons who leave bodies, we do." She shrugged. "Regardless, something has been leaving a trail of destruction through the demon world, and by all indications, it was headed this way."

The Master gave her a considering look. "You think he's real," he interpreted. "You think it was this dread Hunter that Earl here encountered."

"It would certainly fit description, wouldn't it?" she suggested. "Maybe all the stories of this Hunter _are_ all just myth and exaggeration. Maybe it's even just some human with a grudge against our kind, and he's simply been annoyingly successful in acting on it," she admitted. "But the fact is, _something_ has been killing demons all over the world, and that something may have made its way to Sunnydale." She grimaced. "And if so, then inside of five minutes, it's already ruined one of our most sacred prophecies and destroyed what should have been your greatest weapon." She sighed petulantly. "What happened to bringing fruit baskets and bushels of heads when you enter one's territory?"

"Ah, the days of civility," the Master moaned in relished nostalgia. "Oh, how I miss them." He sighed before returning to business. "Well, if you are so sure about this, then there is only one thing to do," he decided, rising from his throne and stepping towards her. "You will find this Hunter, or whoever was responsible for destroying my precious Anointed before he could even be born. You will learn everything you can about him … and you will kill him."

She grinned sweetly, though her eyes glittered with pure viciousness. "It would be my absolute pleasure, Master."

"Oh, I know it will, my sweet Darla," he told her, gently stroking her cheek and giving her a demonic mockery of a fatherly smile. "I know it will."

Unbeknownst to them, however, there was another soul present in the chamber, spying on them from deep within one of the numerous shadowy recesses that pockmarked the walls around the ruined chapel.

"So … the Hunter has come to Sunnydale," the ensouled vampire known as Angel muttered.

"… crap."

* * *

Downtown, the subject of everyone's newfound obsession stood in the rain as he stared down the gullet of a lightless, filth-strewn alley.

"I really need to visit some nicer places," the stranger said to himself, shifting the straps of his bags and entering the alley. With every step, his sodden clothes dragged against his skin like saran wrap, and icy water ran into his eyes from the torrential downpour, but he continued on unaffected.

A monstrous crack of lightning soon lit the night sky like a flash of noonday sun, illuminating a heavy metal door at the end of the alley in front of him. His pounding knock coincided almost perfectly with an echoing boom of thunder from the storm overhead.

In the door, a narrow flap slid aside with a faint metal screech, revealing two eyes staring out inquisitively.

Two sulfuric yellow eyes.

"I'm here for the club," the traveler stated.

The eye-flap promptly slid shut, and with the screech of a heavy metal latch being thrown back, the door swung open.

"Thank you," the dripping guest told the absolutely hulking vampire on the other side, gratefully stepping over the threshold and out of the rain.

"Don't make trouble," the walking mass of muscle warned him in a deep bass that seemed perfectly suited to the thundering storm outside.

The guest grinned. "Oh, I'd never," he promised.

With a bored grunt, the vampire closed the door and returned to a cheep wooden chair, picking up a magazine and slowly flipping through it.

As such, the vamp never noticed the small, delicately carved stone the outsider stuck to the wall next to the door.

The stranger scrubbed a hand through his short, sopping hair as he turned and headed down the short, blocky concrete hallway, flying water droplets glittering like jewels as they reflected the cheap, harsh yellow light overhead.

Opening the only other doorway, however, revealed a very different picture.

"Swanky," he commented idly as he stared out at a surprisingly upscale club grown out of what looked like a sizable bomb shelter. Stepping forward, he leaned on the railing of a broad metal balcony encircling a thriving bar and dance floor downstairs, while the balcony itself was surrounded by dozens of doors leading to what he somewhat suspected weren't prayer corners, given the scantily clad women prowling about outside them, draping themselves over patrons and flashing sultry or even downright predatory smiles at prospectives.

Of course, the term "women" would be a bit of an assumption in a few of their cases, as every one of them possessed at least some form of inhuman characteristics, and in some of their cases, even seemed to possess nothing else.

Not that this exactly made them stand out in this crowd. All in all, maybe a handful of the patrons seemed ostensibly human. All the rest were very obviously and proudly demonic in nature. Even the vampires all seemed to have freely shed their human guises and were strutting about showcasing their feral golden eyes, twisted brow ridges, and razor-sharp fangs as they chatted amicably with other patrons or sipped from glasses of what probably wasn't Gatorade.

"This'll do," the new arrival decided, stepping away from the edge and making his way down the stairs to the main floor. As he did, he earned himself more than a few ugly looks and even threats due to the way his bulky traveler's bag jostled the crowd he waded through.

He didn't bother responding.

Eventually, he managed to reach the circular island bar flanking the dance floor, where numerous demons were … either dancing, mating, or seizing. He couldn't really tell. Mostly, he just appreciated that the whole place wasn't absolutely booming with nauseatingly loud music like most such clubs would be. He suspected magic was involved, given the lines of alien script he glimpsed carved into the floor around the dance area, likely spellwork isolating the majority of the music to the dance floor. However it worked, he was just happy it was quiet enough by the bar to have a functional conversation.

This would certainly make his job easier.

"Welcome to the Sunset Club, stranger!" one of the purely human-looking bartenders greeted as he took an empty seat in front of him. "It's your first time here, isn't it? I can always tell. You lot all have the same look to you."

It seemed he landed himself a chatty one. That would also make things easier.

"Yep. First time here," he answered, dropping his bags next to his seat with a loud, wet thump and shaking his coat free of some of the excess water.

"What'll you have?" the bartender asked, already wiping down the newly damp counter.

"Jägermeister," he ordered, tossing a coin on the counter and rolling his shoulder to ease the knot caused by the larger bag's shoulder strap.

The bartender raised his eyebrows at the sight of the old gold coin, but didn't bother questioning the odd currency. Swiping it instead, he promptly slid him the requested shot, which the stranger tossed back with practiced ease. He shook his head at the drink's kick, but sighed gratefully at the flash of warmth from the alcohol.

"I gotta say, I'm surprised to see a demon bar this large in a town this size," he commented, turning and gazing at the crowd. "Hell, I heard of this place as far away as San Diego."

"Oh, yeah?" the chatty bartender replied with a toothy smile, refilling his glass. "Well, it's not too surprising. Our only real competition out here is a dingy little place on the other side of town called Willy's Bar, and with the Hellmouth out here drawing in our particular clientele by droves, even a town this small needs something more than a little rat-trap like that."

"I'm sure," he responded with a smile, downing the shot. "Some of your customers don't exactly seem like they do much blending with the locals, though," he pointed out, nodding at some of the more overtly monstrous-looking patrons. "They all come in through that alley outside?"

"Oh, no, no. That's just our more public-friendly entrance. We've got another that leads directly to some of the electrical-access tunnels that crisscross all over our fine city," the bartender explained, turning and nodding at the far wall, where a similar-looking hallway led off from the main floor. "That's the entrance our more … _exotic_ -looking clients use, along with our melanin-deprived patrons." The bartender smiled and nodded at a passing vampire he was apparently friendly with, likely a regular.

The brown-haired customer eyed the second entrance before turning back to the bartender. "Hey, watch my stuff for a second?" He tossed an older, even fatter golden coin on the counter as incentive.

"Need to hit the head, eh?" the bartender guessed, hastily pocketing the coin. "Wall on the left."

"Thanks," he answered, sliding off his seat and maneuvering through the crowd once again. As he headed for the back entrance, though, he cast a glance at the side wall the bartender had indicated. To his amusement, he spotted doors marked with the standard "Man" image, the "Woman" image, and what looked like an amorphous blob that he guessed was intended for demons with more unorthodox anatomies.

On the other side of the bar, he made his way down a short concrete hallway much like the one he had entered through, reaching another bouncer minding a heavy metal door. Unlike the hulking vampire, though, this bouncer was an even taller Fyarl demon, complete with the race's standard of curled ram's horns, tough leathery hide, and the demonic equivalent of a resting bitch-face, which looked rather like the human variant, but with just a shade more fang and drool.

"Hey, I'm looking for a friend of mine," he told the bouncer, palming another carved stone. "Big guy. Groxlar. Seen one?"

"I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I haven't seen any Groxlars this evening," the Fyarl answered in a polite and sophisticated tone, which was rather surprising, given that Fyarls were generally more prone to grunting and caveman-esque speech patterns.

"Huh. I guess I beat him here," he said, sticking the stone to the wall next to the door. "Thanks anyway."

"Anytime, sir. Enjoy your evening," the Fyarl replied, still in the jarringly cultured tone.

"Without a doubt," he answered, making his way back to the main floor.

As he headed back to his seat, though, he spotted a few of what he guessed were club employees milling about around the hallway he had arrived through, along with a handful of confused or angry-looking patrons.

 _It seems they found my little surprise_ , he interpreted with a chuckle. _I guess that means it's time to get this show on the road_.

"Ah, you're back," the bartender greeted him happily as he returned to his seat. "Must've been less of a line than usual."

"Yep. I'm sure it'll get busier in a minute, though," he answered cryptically, kicking back another shot before bending down to open one of his bags.

The bartender frowned at him curiously, but didn't ask as he started to refill the shot glass. However, he made a bit of a mess when he jerked in surprise upon spotting the sheathed sword the stranger casually pulled out of the bag.

"Uh … sir?" the bartender said rather nervously.

"Yes?" he replied, not looking up as he partially drew and checked the single wickedly flanged edge of the ornate, slightly curved blade, vaguely resembling a cross between a scimitar and a bat's wing.

Perfect for separating heads from bodies.

… or limbs from bodies, if needed.

"You, uh … can't have weapons out in here," the bartender hesitantly informed him.

"Oh?" he responded noncommittally as he looped the strap of the modified back-sheath over his shoulder and threaded the bottom part through a slit in the back of his reddish leather coat down near his ribs, making sure the black and gold hilt was easily accessible over his shoulder, the deep crimson rubies in the pommel and the top of the knuckle guard winking in the light like cruel, blood-soaked eyes.

"Yeah," the bartender asserted somewhat unassertively as he next pulled out a heavy but delicately engraved silver kukri knife, checking its forward-curved edge as well before attaching the foot-long sheath of the machete-like blade behind his waist under his coat. "It's, uh … bar policy, you know?" the bartender continued, appearing more nervous by the second.

"Thanks for telling me," he absently replied, retrieving a shorter, double-edged dagger with a narrow, finely pointed brownish-gold blade made of what looked like horn, of all things, though hilted in black iron that ran down the blade's spine to strengthen the unconventional material. Satisfied with its sharpness, he hung the blade from his hip. "It would have been embarrassing if I hadn't known," he continued rather insincerely.

"Sure, sure," the bartender agreed uncertainly. By now, several other patrons were staring at the stranger in surprise, confusion, or anxiety as he continued to arm himself right in front of them.

At that point, however, the bartender finally managed to grab the attention of a bouncer with what he probably thought was a surreptitious gesture.

"Alright, buddy. I think it's time you took your business elsewhere," the bouncer, a muscle-bound M'Fashnik, told him gruffly.

In response, the now armed stranger slid his shot of Jäger in front of the bouncer. "Have a drink," he told the M'Fashnik.

"I'm not having a drink, and neither are you," the lizard-like demon growled, grabbing his shoulder. "Now let's take this outsi–"

Grabbing the back of its head, the stranger slammed the demon's face into the counter and shot glass with a loud thud and the tinkle of broken glass.

"I insist," he told the M'Fashnik as it collapsed to the ground, unconscious and bleeding. Turning back to the now shaking bartender, he held up a finger. "One more, please," he ordered politely.

Nodding jerkily, the bartender started filling another glass, though his hand was shaking so much that he got more on the counter than anywhere else.

Not that this bothered the stranger, though. In fact, he wasn't even paying attention to the bartender any longer. Instead, he had swiveled in his seat to look out at the rest of the densely packed club. By now, almost every demon there was staring at him in either imminently aggressive or downright fearful silence, including those clustered around the hallways leading to the exits, mystically locked thanks to his little stones.

" _Showtime_ ," the stranger muttered with a vicious grin.

* * *

 **Author's note:** You know, I swore I wasn't going to start up another story until I had finished one of my others. But then I remembered that I have no self-control. So here you go! Oh, and the first scene of the story takes place during the episode "Never Kill a Boy on the First Date" from season one of _Buffy_.

Also, if you're the type who likes reference images to help get a better picture of the things being described, the sword is roughly based on a modified version of the sword of Vlad Tepes that appeared in DLC for _Assassin's Creed: Revelations_. I don't really have specific reference images for the kukri knife or the coat, but the horn dagger's design was inspired by the dragonbone dagger from _Skyrim_ , though with a more narrow, pointed blade design as opposed to the dagger's more leaf-shaped blade design in the game. And finally, the Sunset Club was inspired by the bomb shelter of the same name that a bunch of cape-wearing vampire wannabes were using to cry about the "Lonely Ones" and generally just be enormous idiots in the episode "Lie to Me" from season two of _Buffy_. Though obviously, the version appearing in this story is very heavily expanded and altered compared to its canon counterpart.

Let me know what you think, and see you next time!


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter** **2** **–** **Vengeance and Studying**

…

While the newly arrived stranger was busy making new friends in low places, farther in town, two people staggered out of the howling storm into a school hallway that was otherwise abandoned due to the late hour. One of the pair was a diminutive young girl wearing a trendy but thoroughly soaked outfit. The other was a taller man wearing glasses and an equally drenched tweed suit.

Despite far outstripping the girl beside him in both height and age, he was still very clearly doing his best to avoid her surprisingly potent glare, and visibly uncomfortable about being subjected to it even so.

"There … is a possibility that my calculations may have been … less than accurate," the man admitted hesitantly in a posh British accent as they walked down the hallway.

The girl continued glaring through wind-blown, waterlogged hair.

"Still," the man continued, a forced cheerful tone in his voice, "better safe than, uh … sorry, you know?" He gave a chuckle. "At least now we _know_ the Anointed will not be rising tonight." His faltering smile crumbled completely under the girl's icy stare. "And, um … I'm sure we have a dry change of clothes for you in the library." Her glare didn't lessen. "And a blanket." Her eyes narrowed. "And, um … hair things, I'm sure. You know, brushes and-and-and so forth." She blinked at him through her tangled mat of hair. "There, uh … might be some scissors, too, if-if you, uh … need them."

Stony silence greeted his efforts.

Lowering his head in surrender, he simply turned and held open the door to the school library for her.

"Hey, you're back!" A petite girl with long red hair and wearing a colorful fuzzy sweater greeted them cheerfully from inside the library, where she was seated at a table strewn with open books. However, one look at the soaking-wet, storm-wracked pair told her that this wasn't exactly cheerful time. "Oh … didn't go so well, huh?"

"Oh, no, it went great, Wil!" the dripping blonde finally spoke up in a chipper tone. "After over three hours of sitting in a cold, dark cemetery enjoying the lovely freezing rain, the howling wind, and the occasional flying branch to the face, we came to the delightful conclusion that the Anointed One will not, in fact, be making an appearance tonight." Bending over sideways, the cold, wet, and irate blonde wrung out her matted hair like a towel, creating a sizable puddle right in the middle of the library floor.

"Oh, darn," a dark-haired boy with a bag of chips and a perpetual wry smile complained as he stepped out from between the library stacks. "And here Willow and I have been stuck wiling away the hours eating snacks, staying dry, and enjoying all the lovely amenities of life indoors and out of the rain." He gave a dramatic sigh. "Some people just have no luck at all."

"Yes, _thank you_ , Xander. That's very helpful," the soaked librarian responded in annoyance that suggested he didn't quite appreciate the boy's glibness, for some reason, though neither was exactly anything new.

"No, no, he's right, Giles," the blonde argued. "I don't think I've quite appreciated just how wonderful my life really is." She picked a muddy twig out of her hair. "I mean, I might have been stuck having fun or flirting with cute boys or staying dry tonight. Man, I dodged that bullet, didn't I? Instead, I got to find out what it was like to be one of those sailors in all those movies where the ship gets caught in some terrible storm before if finally just gives up and sinks. Woo! Now those are experiences you can't buy! And now, I get to go comb mud out of my hair while I see if the outfit I bought just last week with the last of my allowance can actually recover from its tenure as a used mop!"

The tweed-clad librarian sighed. "Don't you think you might be being just a bit overdramatic, Buffy?" he suggested tiredly.

She blinked at him. "Wow, you really _haven't_ spent much time around teenage girls before you landed this gig, have you?"

"Not as such, and _clearly_ , I have been missing out on a novel experience," Giles dryly responded, stepping into the book cage that always seemed full of most anything other than books, returning with a pair of towels, one of which he tossed to the sullen blonde.

"So, this whole Annoying One prophecy was a big ol' dud, huh?" Xander asked as Buffy started toweling her hair and rustling around in the "book" cage for a change of clothes.

" _Anointed One_ ," Giles corrected reflexively. "And more likely there were simply issues in its translation and interpretation," he answered as he made his own attempts at getting dry. "Many of the most crucial portents for these matters are cosmological occurrences that are only vaguely defined at best, or else they're based on dates that are holy and venerated only by specific orders and cults, who are less than forthcoming about sharing the respective details with the rest of the world." He sighed tiredly. "I'm afraid that interpreting the whens and wheres of such prophecies requires more than a little creativity, and a fair bit of guesswork on top of that." He grimaced. "And my efforts were clearly insufficient in this instance."

"… Uh-huh," the less-than-bookish teenager responded to the very technical explanation. "You know, when _I_ fail, I usually just say something like, 'I lost the textbook', or, 'My dog ate all my notes'. But then again, for me, failing usually just means flunking my classes, getting a crummy job, spending my life poor and miserable, and eventually dying a quiet and unmourned death in a trailer somewhere surrounded by beer cans and a soon to be well-fed rat population. But for _you_ , it means sitting uselessly in a graveyard while the new Big Bad rises unchecked at some other time and place, who then goes off and kills a whole bunch of people before hatching some doom-the-world scheme with no one there to stop him."

Everyone stared at him as he finally finished.

"Wow, that really puts the test I bombed last week into perspective, doesn't it?" Xander noticed happily.

Giles simply glared at him for a bit before stomping off to his office.

"You know, maybe it wouldn't be such a terrible idea for you to do the quiet-sitting thing," Willow suggested. "You know, where you just sit there not saying things that tick off Giles?"

"Hmm … I'm not sure I can pull that off," Xander replied, demonstrating an impressive level of self-awareness.

"Well, just do your best," Willow compromised.

"Hey, where're my workout clothes?" Buffy asked the room after failing to find them in the book cage.

"Well, remember how you wore them when you were doing your Slayer training here yesterday?" Willow asked.

"Yeah," Buffy answered.

"And do you also remember taking them home to be washed and then not bringing a new set back with you this morning?" Willow continued.

Buffy groaned. "Great. Just more fun to add to the eternal siesta that is my life as a Slayer. Now I get to wander around here looking like a drowned rat while we figure out the whole no-show Anointed Guy thing. But that's okay, because at least I can look forward to escaping my misery by catching pneumonia and dying."

"I think you look great, personally," a male voice suddenly said.

Whirling around, Buffy's eyes looked like they were going to fall out of her sockets at the sight of the tall, dark Angel standing between the book-stacks.

At the table, meanwhile, Willow hopped in her seat with a startled "Eep!" at his unexpected presence, while Xander fell out of his chair with a markedly less delicate shout.

"Okay, seriously! Would it kill you to wear a bell or something?" Xander demanded of the walking shadow.

"You're here," Buffy said, staring at Angel. "Great." She glanced down at her muddy and soaking wet clothes. "That's just perfect," she groused.

"Hey, it's not as if we don't match," Angel pointed out, stepping out from the shadows and revealing that he, too, looked like he had gone a few rounds with a muddy pond, and hadn't exactly come out the winner.

"What's going on out there?" Giles called, striding out of his office at the sound of all the commotion. "Who is this?" he asked upon spotting the newcomer.

"Angel," the eponymous stranger answered.

"Oh," the Watcher drew up short. "So you're him then," he said quietly. "The vampire with a soul."

"Last I checked," Angel replied, somber as ever.

"Yes, I, uh … I've heard quite a bit about you," Giles said, glancing at Buffy. "And read rather a bit more," he added, half turning towards his office, which housed a veritable cornucopia of Watchers' diaries, more than a few of which detailed Angel's impressively colorful past.

"Yeah," Angel said, rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly, knowing the kind of things the Watcher would have read.

For a few moments, uncomfortable silence reigned throughout the group.

"… Don't you love it when two people meet and just start clicking?" Xander finally asked the room. "It warms the heart."

Giles shot him a mild glare.

"See? Told you I couldn't do it," Xander told Willow.

"It's okay. I believe you did your best," she told him, patting him on the hand comfortingly.

"Why are you here?" Giles asked Angel.

Buffy shot him an outraged glare for how blunt and harsh that was.

"Sorry, I didn't mean …," the tense but good-intentioned Watcher backpedaled. "It's just … you haven't come here before, so I assume that something important drew you. Well, other than Buffy, that is." Her horrified face made him backpedal even further. "Not that-that you _would_ be here to see Buffy, of course." At this point, Buffy simply buried her face in her hands. "And that is not to say that you _shouldn't_ be here to see Buffy either. O-o-or that you should be."

Angel simply stood there with raised eyebrows, which for him was the equivalent of open-mouthed staring, while Willow and Xander just sat there in horrified awe of the man's fumbling.

Buffy clearly just wanted the ground to open up and swallow her.

"Why are you here?" Giles gave up and repeated tiredly.

"It's fine. I know what you meant," Angel assured him, which seemed to make the man feel a bit better, even if it didn't seem to assuage Buffy at all. "I actually didn't expect to find any of you here this late. I was on my way to find Buffy when I saw the lights on here."

"You were looking for me?" Buffy asked quietly, a small smile on her face.

"We were researching the prophecies of Aurelius regarding the Anointed One," Giles answered Angel. "I had calculated that he would be rising tonight. And given that the prophecies referred to him as 'the Master's great warrior' and claimed that 'the Slayer will not stop him, and he will lead her into hell', it seemed best to do what we could to find him and kill him before he could accomplish his task."

"You too, huh?" Angel remarked, mostly to himself.

"I'm sorry?" Giles inquired.

"The Master," Angel explained. "The Anointed was pretty much all he could talk about. I just got back from spying on him."

"Good lord," Giles muttered in astonishment.

"Is that safe?" Buffy asked in concern.

"Definitely not," Angel answered. "But it seems Giles wasn't the only one expecting the Anointed to rise tonight … and he wasn't the only one to be disappointed, either."

"You mean he did _not_ rise? The Master did not collect him?" Giles asked hopefully.

"Better than that. He's dead," Angel replied.

"The Master?" Xander asked in confusion.

"No, the Anointed," Angel corrected. "I think I would have led with 'The Master's dead' if it had been him."

The embarrassed and incredibly mature Xander responded by mockingly mimicking Angel.

"Wait, you're saying this big new whosit we've been waiting out in the rain for since forever is already dead?" Buffy asked in astonishment, and more than a little irritation.

"That's what it seems like," Angel told her.

"How?" Giles demanded.

Angel's expression turned concerned. "The Hunter," he answered quietly.

Giles' brow furrowed in confusion. "The hunter? Who are you–" He froze as he suddenly understood. "You mean …"

"I mean," Angel reluctantly confirmed.

"You mean who? Who are you guys talking about?" Buffy demanded, growing more than a little alarmed at the pale expression of her Watcher, and the look of deep-seated concern being shared between him and Angel.

"You're sure?" Giles asked Angel quietly.

"No, I'm not," Angel admitted. "But the Master sent six of his best to attack a bus that he thought carried his future Anointed. Only one returned, carrying stories of how all the others were ripped apart by some mysterious figure before the bus was burned to a cinder, along with all the corpses they were planning to turn to create their precious Anointed."

"' _Five will die, and from their ashes, the Anointed shall rise_ '," Giles quoted.

"Well there's a bit more than just five in the pile now," Angel told him. "And those ashes don't seem to be the kind that anything rises from. An exploded bus is a bit more final than a drained human corpse, after all, even for vampires. If anything was supposed to rise there, it's nothing but dust and fragments now."

"Then whoever is responsible may have just averted the entire prophecy," Giles interpreted, deep in thought.

"You mean this Hunter guy that you're both still leaving us all in the dark about?" Buffy guessed.

As Giles glanced at her, his gaze grew even more concerned. "And the Master is sure it was him?" he asked Angel, still avoiding her questions.

"The survivor's description apparently fits, and according to the Master's sources, he had last been seen headed in this direction before this," Angel answered. "It might not really be him, but the Master's people are working under the assumption that it is."

"Okay, enough with the crypto-speak!" Buffy interrupted, at the end of her patience. "Those of us in the peanut gallery who, given how things go around here, might end up having to fight whoever or whatever this guy is would really like to know just what in the world you're talking about."

"Yeah, and the rest of us in the gallery who have no desire whatsoever to fight this guy who apparently just blew up a bus and committed an act of domestic terrorism in our quaint little town would also like to know, though mostly just because we're really really curious," Xander chimed in.

"Though that's not to say that we _wouldn't_ fight if it came to that," Willow hastily added. "Buffy's our friend, and we've got her back. Though, I'll admit, it would be pretty helpful if we had some idea of what it was we were having her back against." She paused, looking confused at her own phrasing. "Or, that we're backing her up against. Or that we're having her back for when she goes up against the thing that we're, uh …"

Xander and Buffy stared at the rambling girl.

"Who's the Hunter?" Willow asked more coherently.

Giles removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes before answering. "Honestly, I'm not even sure that's the right question," he finally admitted.

Willow and Xander looked at each other in confusion.

"You mean he may be more of a 'what'?" Buffy caught on.

"Or possibly even a 'them'," Giles told her. "No one's really sure. The Hunter …," he paused, clearly struggling for a way to explain. "It's an enigma," he finally said. "And many don't even believe it's real."

"I didn't," Angel admitted. "Though now I'm starting to."

"Well, let's go out on a limb and say we _do_ believe," Buffy suggested. "Who is it? _What_ is it? And why does it have you and Angel looking at each other like you're trying to figure out how to tell me my grandma died?"

Giles once more seemed to struggle to find his words.

"Just start from the beginning, Giles," Buffy told him in impatient irritation.

"Alright, alright," he said. "For the last several years, rumors have been circulating among the demon world, and among my colleagues, the Watcher's Council. _Something_ had been waging an intense and bloody campaign against the demon world."

"'Something'?" Buffy repeated.

"Well, no one's quite sure what is responsible," Giles asked. "There, uh … don't tend to be many witnesses left, afterwards. Or if there are, they aren't exactly coming forward to tell anyone about it. Well, other than this vampire chap Angel mentioned, anyway."

"Who was less than coherent, and not exactly a pillar of reliability," Angel added.

"But what do you think it is? Or what did the Watcher's Council think?" Buffy asked.

"There are a number of theories," Giles explained. "Some believe it is some demon or other. I've even heard more than a few guesses of what kind, though none of which seem any more reliable than any other, given the lack of information. Others claim the Hunter is actually a series of individuals taking on the mantle of their predecessor when the previous one dies. That seems a bit more probable, but it's still just guesswork. The most prevalent theory I've found, and the one the Council believes, is that it's actually a group operating under the illusion of a single individual, or perhaps using one active field member to carry out the orders of the larger organization."

"An organization?" Buffy repeated. "What, you mean like an anti-Council?"

"Actually, that's precisely what many among the Council seem to fear," Giles told them.

"Not too fond of a little healthy competition, huh?" Xander guessed. "What, there aren't enough demons to go around? They just _have_ to have the monopoly on the monster-killing?"

"I'm afraid it isn't that simple, Xander," Giles replied. "This Hunter, group or individual, is-is-is _violent._ And dangerous. This isn't simple hunting and slaying such as what we do here. This … this is more extreme. In fact, I've even heard the word 'genocide' thrown about a few times in reference to this figure's possible goals. And it doesn't exactly seem out of place."

The members of the Scooby gang all blinked at that.

"But it's still demons we're talking about, right?" Xander asked. "I'm not exactly sure we should be holding candle-light vigils for the victims here. In fact, if this Hunter guy or gang or whatever has decided to take up shop here in Sunnydale, then doesn't that just mean less overtime for everyone's favorite un-paid and overworked Slayer here?"

"Hey, yeah!" Willow realized. "I mean, you _are_ always complaining about how your slaying cuts into having a regular life, Buff," Willow pointed out to the blonde. "If you can split the slayage between Slayer Buffy and this Hunter guy, then that would leave more time for high-school-attending, Bronze-going, fun-having Buffy. And that's a good thing, right?"

Buffy's eyes glimmered with hope, but only briefly. "If it was, then I somehow doubt that Giles here would be wearing his I'm-a-doctor-and-I-don't-know-how-to-tell-you-that-you-have-an-inoperable-tumor face," she pointed out after glancing at her Watcher.

"But you don't have a tumor," Willow argued, ever the optimist. "Tumors are bad things. You have more of a benign good-luck growth that's actually a sign that everything's great and going to turn out okay." She looked at the librarian hopefully. "Right, Giles? She doesn't have a tumor, does she?"

This time, Giles' hesitation had less to do with his difficulty parsing Willow-speak and more to do with the fact that he simply didn't want to say.

"It's okay, Giles. You can tell us," Buffy said quietly, reading his face like a book.

He sighed. "Not much is known about the Hunter," he repeated, "but we have extrapolated patterns based on his suspected movements. And his … well … his victims."

"And?" Buffy prompted.

"And from what we can tell, up until now, he seems to have been following certain habits," he continued slowly. "Generally speaking, the areas he visits all have some established figure or figures of power in place there—demonic royal bloodlines, exceptionally ancient vampires, the … well, the demon equivalent of a Mafia, I suppose you would call them. But you get the picture."

"Demons have their own Mafias?" Xander interrupted. "Way to appropriate human culture, dudes. Killing us is one thing, but that's just tacky."

Giles glared at him before continuing. "The point is, he, or-or-or _they_ , only seem to pick locations that possess some figure or group of figures that are respected and feared for their power there. In a sense, one could say that the area is essentially _their_ territory."

"And then?" Willow prompted.

"And then," Giles sighed, "he wages war."

Everyone was silent for a moment.

"Now when you say war …," Xander began.

"He … he harasses them. Tactically. _Brutally_. He slaughters those around them. He tears down the kingdom they've built brick by brick. He does everything he can to disrupt their goals or plans and erode their powerbase in the area, all the while killing his way up the proverbial food chain from followers to allies to confidants. Eventually, all that is left is one broken, beaten, formerly powerful figure. And before he moves on, he finally kills them, too." He grimaced. "And then he moves on to a new territory."

"And now he's come here," Buffy continued.

"Precisely," Giles agreed.

"So what's the big?" Xander asked. "If he's here, he's gotta be going after the Master, right? So that schlub ends up having an even more miserable time than we were giving him. Where's the bad? I say we invite this Hunter guy over and buy him pizza!"

Buffy didn't share his optimism. She was too busy seeing what was hidden in Giles' eyes. "He's not here for the Master, is he," she didn't really ask. "Or at least, not just for him."

Giles met her eyes, but didn't speak. He simply shook his head.

"What? What do you mean? What else would he be here for?" Xander asked.

"Buffy called him 'anti-Council'," Angel reminded Xander. "Giles said that this was exactly what the Watchers fear about this guy, or group, or whatever. There's a reason they think that."

"He doesn't just kill demons," Buffy explained. "He kills _Slayers_." She turned to her Watcher. "Doesn't he?"

"The reports have never been completely confirmed," Giles quietly hedged. "But … yes."

Buffy nodded slowly. "How many?" she asked just as quietly.

"… unknown," Giles reluctantly answered.

"What? How could you not know?!" Xander demanded.

"Slayers work in the field. Watchers stay behind," Giles answered with a certain amount of heat at the boy's words. "Since the Slayer can't exactly report back … well, _after_ … and the Watcher often isn't there to see it happen, reports on the deaths of slayers are often sketchy at best, and non-existent at worst." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "And any reports potentially touching on this Hunter, whether individual or group, are generally murkier than most. Especially since your standard vampire or demon will typically boast to anyone that will listen about having bested a Slayer. This Hunter, however, doesn't. He simply continues with his carnage."

"So you really don't know for sure?" Willow asked quietly.

Giles sighed and shook his head. "He's believed to have been in the area when some have died, so it's suspected that he may have been responsible, but there's almost no confirmed reports saying for sure." He looked at Buffy. "But Slayers would fit his pattern. They're powerful, and it can be easily said that any city housing a Slayer is, in effect, _her_ territory."

"And Sunnydale would be mine," Buffy interpreted with a thousand-yard stare. "But you said ' _almost_ no confirmed reports'. That means there are some."

"One, actually," Giles told her. "Your predecessor."

She finally remet his gaze at that. "You mean this Hunter is the reason I'm a Slayer?" she asked, her expression unreadable.

"It's believed so," he said gently. "The last reports from her Watcher made it clear that he believed this Hunter was responsible. His final word was that he was going to pursue the Hunter himself in an attempt to avenge her death, in defiance of Council orders."

"That was his final word?" Willow reluctantly asked.

"He was never heard from again," Giles replied.

"Oh," Willow said unhappily, clearly unsurprised by the answer, but still regretting having asked.

"Still," Giles quickly added, eyeing his overtly un-emotive charge with concern, "all of this may be nothing. There is still no proof that this Hunter chap has even come to Sunnydale, or even that he's real in the first place. And even if he is and has, there's nothing saying that he _is_ here for the Slayer. Not definitively, anyway. It may even be that Xander is right, and he is simply here for the Master. It's not as if a vampire as old and powerful as him wouldn't be of interest to him, after all."

"Wait, did you just say I could be right?" Xander asked in wonder. "Well, look at Mr. D-Average coming up in the world!"

"Except the Master has been forever," Buffy spoke up, ignoring Xander's boasting. "He's been trapped in this town since the 30s. And the Hunter hasn't come after him before. He only came to Sunnydale after _I_ moved here."

Giles grimaced, clearly having hoped she wouldn't make that connection.

"We'll protect you, Buffy. You don't have to worry," Angel told her, laying a hand gently on her shoulder. "I won't let anything happen to you."

Buffy's eyes hardened. "Oh, I don't need protection," she said, stepping away from his hand. "I just need information. Giles!" she turned to her Watcher. "How powerful is this guy? What can he do? Do we know anything solid?"

Giles pulled off his glasses and began reflexively cleaning them. "Not much, I'm afraid," he told her. "He's strong, though. He's been very regularly going up against numerous or particularly powerful or skilled demons, and coming out the victor. Whether this is due to demonic power of some sort, exceptional human skill and cunning, or the knowledge and resources of a larger organization, he will likely prove a formidable opponent regardless. Should you end up facing him, that is."

"Oh, I'm going to face him, alright," Buffy promised, anger and resolve filling her face. "He may think that I'm just another Slayer to notch in his belt. But he has _no idea_ what he's in for! Because he may have fought Slayers before, but he's never fought _me_."

"Wow. You've really got a yen to hurt this guy, don't you?" Xander noticed.

"He's the reason I'm a Slayer," she muttered, a light of rage glowing in her eyes. Turning, she headed for the book cage. "He killed the Slayer before me, and that means he's the reason my life is just a constant horror show of demons and graveyards and Principal Snyders." Throwing open the weapon's case, she pulled free a sword with a metallic "shing!"

"Oh, I'm going to hurt him," she swore, inspecting the blade. "I don't care what he is. The last thing he's going to know in this world is regret that he ever came to _my_ town!" She turned to her Watcher. "Grab your pads and put on some coffee, Giles. We've got training to do."

His glasses clattered to the ground as he clumsily caught the sword she tossed to him.

"It's time to find out exactly what a pissed-off Slayer can do," she whispered, holding her sword aloft as everyone there stared at her, fully swept up in the moment.

"… Oh! But wait! Don't you still have to study for our French test tomorrow?" Willow suddenly asked in concern.

Buffy stared at her over the edge of the blade she was checking.

"Willow, I think we have bigger concerns right now than French class," Buffy told her.

"Actually, Buffy, while I'm glad you're taking the situation seriously, and I appreciate your, um … enthusiasm for training," Giles told her, delicately setting down the sword, "I doubt you'll exactly be running across him tonight. Meaning your academic responsibilities still have to be fulfilled."

"What? But Giles! Did you not hear my speech? I am in vengeance mode!" Buffy complained in what sounded rather like whiny teenager mode. "See me holding the sword and ready for the training? This isn't the time for books and studying! Give me some butts to kick, people!"

"Schoolwork first, vengeance later," Giles told her resolutely, collecting her sword and placing them both back in the case. "The butts will still be there to be kicked later." Willow, bookworm and school enthusiast that she was, nodded approvingly with his decision.

Buffy gaped at both Willow and Giles.

"Can you believe them?" she complained to Angel. "I'm ready to be Slayer girl, and they want me to worry about schoolwork!"

"Well, if it makes you feel better, I could probably help you a bit with your studying," Angel offered.

"You speak French?" she asked him in delight, wrapping her arm around his and slowly leading him to the table, quickly appeased like only an infatuated young girl could be.

"Well, I did spend quite a bit of time in Europe," he mentioned.

"I guess that's the polite way of saying, 'I ate half of France back when I was my bad old self, and I might have picked up a few things on the language while I was between meals'," Xander loudly muttered, rather displeased by this turn of events as he glared jealously at Angel's Buffy-wrapped arm.

"Yeah, that's what I was going for," Angel wryly answered while everyone else glared at Xander. "I'm just real big on manners that way."

As Angel joined the Scoobies in helping to prepare the Slayer, scourge of the underworld, for a French test, Giles gave a quiet snort. "A vampire teaching French class," he muttered to himself. "Now I _have_ seen everything."

* * *

 **The Sunset Club**

A still, heavy silence reigned throughout the once booming demon club. The only sounds to break it were the faint echoing "plunk!" of dripping liquid and the tired shuffle of now deeply stained boots belonging to the being known as "The Hunter" as he stepped over bodies and gently splashed through deep crimson puddles. Along the way, he reached up and unclipped the sheath slung over his back so he could shrug out of his heavy leather coat, draping it over one of the few dry segments of the bar that still remained before settling back into his seat with a long, weary sigh.

Lifting his recently well-used sword, he set it down with a faint clatter on another part of the counter, ignoring the bloody puddle already there.

Every inch of the blade was already dripping with the stuff anyway.

"Long day," the Hunter sighed, reaching over the counter and grabbing one of the bar cloths. "You don't mind if I borrow this, do you?" he asked the once-chatty bartender.

The man didn't answer, but he would have been more surprised if he had, given that the man was currently draped across the bar next to him staring silently at the ceiling with a bloody gash across his throat.

"Thanks, buddy. Knew you'd understand," he told the man, using the cloth to wipe away the blood that covered his entire face like a mask. Thankfully, it wasn't any of the acidic yellow demon blood that had briefly coated one of his forearms, leaving a wicked burn that he wrapped tightly with the cloth once his face was relatively clear once again.

"Some of your clients really knew how to roughhouse, didn't they?" he commented to the bartender, feeling his pained ribs. As he did, though, another injury made itself known with a sharp throb. "Not afraid to attack someone from behind, either," he added with a grunt as he massaged a knot on the back of his head. "You should be proud."

As he sat there, however, he caught a glimpse of something shiny in the man's shirt pocket. "Oh, I almost forgot about those," he realized. "I'm sure you lot had a strict 'no refunds' policy, but what do you say we make an exception just this once?" Without waiting for an answer, he reached into the pocket and retrieved the gold coins he had paid him.

"Hmm. And what's this?" Behind the coins, he also found a partial pack of cigarettes and a book of matches. "I assume this is the part where I'm suppose to make some joke about how 'These things'll kill you', right?" he asked the thoroughly deceased bartender as he bummed a smoke. "Thankfully, I'm better than that," he remarked as he struck the match against the counter-top to light the cigarette.

He took a long, deep drag, holding it in before finally, slowly exhaling with a groan of appreciation.

After a few minutes of slow, relaxing drags, he grabbed the last shot of Jäger the bartender had poured him, idly noticing in the dark brown alcohol a small, crimson cloud of blood flowing and dancing unmeshed in the liquid like oil in water. Turning in his seat, he leaned back against the bar with his elbows on the counter, the glass in one hand and the cigarette in the other.

The once lavish and thriving club was a scene of beautiful devastation. Everywhere he looked, demons lay strewn about like broken toys—patrons, bar-workers, and guards alike. Several were even draped over the railing of the upstairs balcony that encircled the entire lower floor.

As he watched, one such corpse finally gave up its precarious balancing act and simply fell free, landing with a wet smack on the ground floor below as it fell in one of the numerous brownish-gray puddles of sludge created from mixing demon blood with vampire ash.

As he took another deep drag of the dead man's cigarette, he noticed how demon blood liberally coated every visible surface in an absolute riot of colors, even splattering up the walls like rainbow-hued Jackson Pollock paintings. Sure, deep crimson was by far the most common, as his largely red-drenched attire would attest, but yellows, browns, oranges, greens, and every other color imaginable was present somewhere or another in the mix. In fact, while the upstairs entrance was absolutely packed with demons who had tried to escape in a panicked rush, only to find the door mystically unopenable, the stairs directly across from the resultant pile looked like someone had taken an assortment of different colored paint cans and just dumped them all out everywhere.

As a result, the sharp, metallic tang of blood absolutely soaked the air, even managing to drown out the clouds of cheap cologne that had practically assaulted his senses when he first walked in. But now, even walking across the floor, you practically drowned in the oaky metallic scent of demon blood like you had your nose buried in the stuff. The faint curls of cigarette smoke that trailed through the air around him clouded the smell somewhat, but it didn't do much.

Though that might have been because of the blood-drenched clothes he was still wearing.

He lifted the shot of Jäger to his lips as he continued surveying his latest handiwork.

"It's a start," he decided, kicking back the shot with a grin.

* * *

 **Author's note:** Merry Christmas, ya'll! Hope everybody's enjoying their holidays!

Regarding Angel and Darla, while Angel's vampiric and soul-bearing nature wasn't revealed until a bit later than this in the show (in the episode "Angel"), and that revelation involved him killing Darla to essentially prove himself to Buffy and the gang, in this story, it happened a little bit ago, and without Darla dying, as I just didn't really feel the need to drag out the revelation that he's a vampire, since this story isn't focused on him. Plus, I think Darla's interesting, so big no to Angel staking her as part of his coming-out party.

I hope you all enjoy the story!


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